The Impact of the Flexner Report on Sectarian Medical Schools

Alternative medicine was a common form of medical practice in the 19th century. Yet, by the mid-20th century, homeopathic and eclectic medical schools became nearly nonexistent. Many historians point to Abraham Flexner’s report Medical Education in the United States and Canada Bulletin Number Four, commonly referred to as the Flexner Report, as a key reason for the decline of homeopathic and eclectic medical schools. In his report, Flexner blatantly criticizes sectarian medical philosophy and discredits nearly all homeopathic and eclectic medical school. Although numerous historians have investigated how the Flexner report initiated governmental reforms of medical education which thereby contributed to the dissolution of numerous homeopathic and eclectic medical schools, the impact of the Flexner Report on the public perception of alternative medicine has been largely neglected. This study examines newspaper articles published during that period and the records of alternative medical schools to provide insight into how the Flexner Report impacted public perception of alternative medicine and thus contributed to the decline in homeopathic and eclectic medical schools. This study reveals that the media widely portrayed Flexner, and thus the information in his report, as a reliable and unbiased source despite Flexner’s strongly influenced educational philosophy and his close cooperation with the AMA which favoured allopathic medical schools. As financial records of homeopathic and eclectic medical schools reveal, the public’s acceptance of Flexner’s perspective led to a decline in public funding and enrolment at these institutions, thereby leading to the closure of numerous homeopathic and eclectic medical schools. However, since many of these institutions were suffering financially prior to 1910, the impact of the Flexner Report should not be over-stressed. Therefore, taking into consideration the historical context, the Flexner Report played a key role in hastening the pre-existing decline in homeopathic and eclectic medical schools.

On the arts and humanities in medical education

This paper aims to position the birth of the Medical Humanities movement in a greater historical context of twentieth century American medical education and to paint a picture of the current landscape of the Medical Humanities in medical training. It first sheds light on the model of medical education put forth by Abraham Flexner through the publishing of the 1910 Flexner Report, which set the stage for defining physicians as experimentalists and rooting the profession in research institutions. While this paved the way for medical advancements, it came at the cost of producing a patriarchal approach to medical practice. By the late 1960s, the public persona of the profession was thus devoid of humanism. This catalyzed the birth of the Medical Humanities movement that helped lay the framework for what has perpetuated as the ongoing incorporation of humanistic subjects into medical training. As we enter a time in medicine in which rates of burnout are ever-increasing and there are growing concerns about a concomitant reduction in empathy among trainees, the need for instilling humanism remains important. We must consequently continue to consider how to ensure the place of the Medical Humanities in medical education moving forward.

Abraham Flexner’s Lasting Effects on Medical Education in the United States and Canada

In 1910, a document produced by an American educator changed the course of medical education ushering in a new philosophy based on the scientific method, active learning, and competency-based education. Abraham Flexner’s report, Medical Education in the United States and Canada: A Report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, was a groundbreaking study undertaken to improve the quality of medical education and ensure capable, competent physicians and surgeons in the United States and Canada. However, the Flexner Report was not without consequences, both intended and unintended. A large majority of schools examined by Flexner did not meet the standards by which he judged them. Nearly half of the schools in the report closed; most of those were programs dedicated to medical education for African Americans, women, and working-class students changing the demographics of the medical profession in ways that it has only recently begun to remedy.

Can we cure our patients in palliative care?

With the publication of Flexner report in 1910 and implementation in 1913, with the Rockefeller Foundation and Carnegie Foundation behind it, all medical schools on the main continents of the planet (America, Europe, and Asia) had to adapt to follow the new model of a so-called scientific school. Schools that did not meet the Flexner criteria had to be closed, such as those teaching herbal medicine, naturopathy, homeopathy, etc and only 20% of the schools maintain working. The history of medicine in USA was written by King (1984) in the article entitled XX. The Flexner Report of 1910 [1].

The Role of Teachers in the Education of Health Professionals in the 21st Century

Two questions that today's health professors should ask themselves are: Am I teaching my students in the most effective way possible to train professionals with the standards and needs demanded by today's society? Are my students memorizing facts and concepts or are they developing skills that they integrate into their personal and professional lives? In 1910 the Flexner report was published, which gave rise to the first reforms that sought to establish innovations in the education of health professionals, but the great revolution in world education arose from a study published by Barr and Tagg in 1995 where they stressed the importance of changing the paradigm of education centered on content to a new paradigm where education is centered on learning; Thus, in 1998, within the framework of the World Conference on Higher Education, UNESCO expressed the need to update higher education, bringing it closer to the current challenges of society, and in response to this request, in 1999, several European countries signed the Bologna agreement that seeks to improve the quality of higher education by creating the European Higher Education Area.

Critique of Practical and Clinical Medical Reasoning

A distinction is made between “scientific” medicine and practical medicine. The former relates to medical decisions couched in scientific methods such as the hypothetico-deductive approach, and it is often used pejoratively, as excessive reliance on such science and scientists, particularly if the scientists are not also clinicians. Practical medicine suggests alternatives, intuition. To be sure, successful medical reasoning has long predated the development of modern science that supports the notion of scientific medicine. Furthermore, some physicians just seem better without necessarily having greater scientific knowledge. Ethics is fundamental to medical decisions. The distinction between scientific and practical may not be very sharp, and trying to separate and advance one over the other likely is counterproductive. Modern allopathic physicians pushed the distinctions, as seen in their code of ethics and the changes subsequent to the Flexner Report. Critical analysis of intuition suggests that it is “scientific” and that science is “intuitive.”